Food for Fort: on Spanish cured pork fillet and salted capers

What recipes can you use cured lomo in? Plus any tips on making salted capers less salty?

Well worth their salt: Don't waste time trying to erase all traces of salt in salted capers – it's part of the whole point: the capers are a seasoning in their own right. Photograph: Roger Tooth for the Guardian

I've been given some Spanish charcuterie (or whatever the equivalent Spanish term is), which includes cured lomo – can you suggest any recipes in which I could use it?Ah, I think you mean lomo embuchado (or cured pork fillet to me). It's designed to be sliced thinly and eaten just as it is, much as you would salami or bresaola, though you could splash a little olive oil over it, I suppose. I have been known to cut up similar products into cubes and add them to stews and the like in place of bacon (it's very good in a rabbit stew, for example). And if you want a complete break with convention, wrap it around other ingredients – pickled courgettes, say, or dollops of celeriac remoulade – or add some to whatever you're using to stuff tomatoes, onions or courgettes. Or cut it into slivers and add it to salads.

I find it impossible to desalinate salted capers enough to make them palatable. Any tips?I have always felt that the saltiness of salted capers was part of their point, that sun'n'sea-invoking combination of the caper's wild tang and the sharp, marine bite of the salt. The Italian website Capersud says, "Before using them, put them in abundant cold water, changing it many times, to make them lose a little bit of salt, and be careful not to salt too much the food they will be added to." I think that's the point: you use the capers as a seasoning in their own right.